General Information

Course Logistics
This course meets: M/W 4:00 - 5:15 in Allwine Hall 305
Study of biological diversity at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels, its values, and the factors that threaten it. We will explore the scientific basis of conservation biology and how it can be applied to maintain biological diversity. (Cross-listed with BIOL 8126).
Prerequisites: BIOL 1450, 1750, 2140 and Junior-Senior in biology. Not open to non-degree graduate students.

Necessary Resources

Summary of Required Course Materials
Canvas You must review Canvas regularly. For technical support, please use Canvas Student Support.
Course Website Any material I keep here will also appear on Canvas
Conservation Biology Required text for this course.

Instructor

Alicia M. Rich, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology

  • Please call me: Dr. Rich or Professor Rich (she/her)
    • Please do not use Canvas messages to contact me. I will not monitor those.
  • Office: Allwine Hall Room 413
  • Office Hours: By appointment on Thursdays and Fridays
    • I will return your emails within 48 business hours, but I may not check my email during evenings or weekends. If you are still waiting for a response after three business days, please reach out again.
    • If you would like to schedule an in-person meeting, please request this at least 48 hours in advance. I do not schedule student meetings outside regular workday hours (M-F, 9-5), so please do not ask me to meet with you in the evenings or on weekends.

Detailed Information

Learning Objectives
Level Students will be able to...
Remember Identify and recall key concepts and terminology related to zoo biology, such as taxonomic classifications, animal behavior terms, and basic biological principles.
Understand Explain the fundamental theories and principles of zoo biology, including the importance of biodiversity conservation and the role of zoos in wildlife conservation efforts.
Apply Apply their knowledge of zoo biology to analyze and solve real-world problems related to animal care, exhibit design, and wildlife conservation strategies within a controlled zoo environment.
Analyze Evaluate the ethical and practical considerations involved in managing zoo populations, critically assess the impact of human activities on animal habitats, and propose evidence-based solutions for enhancing animal welfare and conservation efforts.

Assignments

Assignments
Conservation Biology is an applied discipline that encompasses a much broader range of careers and expertise than most realize.

We may work on applied skills through a few special assignments spread throughout the semester.

These assignments may occur during class and without advanced notice, so you must be in attendance to earn credit.

Assigned Readings

Required Text
Conservation Biology

Authors: Bradley Cardinale, Richard Primack, and James Murdoch

Date: 11 October 2019 (1st edition)

ISBN: 9781605357140
If you prefer a hardcopy version then you must opt out of automatic purchase of the eBook through Canvas by the end of Week 2.

Schedule

Below is a tentative schedule for the semester. This is subject to change and will be updated on the live Github link and the course Canvas page, so please check back regularly.

Current Schedule for Conservation Biology - Spring 2025
Last updated on 2025-01-231
Day and Time Agenda Text Pages2
Week 1 - Foundations of Conservation Biology
Mon, 1/20 4:00 PM No Class -
Wed, 1/22 4:00 PM Intro to the Class -
Week 2 - Foundations of Conservation Biology
Mon, 1/27 4:00 PM Biodiversity Concepts and Measurement: Genetic Diversity 53 - 57
Wed, 1/29 4:00 PM Biodiversity Concepts and Measurement: Species Diversity 58 - 66
Week 3 - Foundations of Conservation Biology
Mon, 2/3 4:00 PM Biodiversity Concepts and Measurement: Community and Ecosystem Diversity 67 - 80
Week 3 - Importance of Biodiversity
Wed, 2/5 4:00 PM Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services 141 - 180
Week 4 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 2/10 4:00 PM Extinction: Global Patterns of Endangerment, Local Changes in Biodiversity 215 - 239
Wed, 2/12 4:00 PM Extinction: Controls of Extinction Risk 240 - 248
Week 5 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 2/17 4:00 PM Exam -
Wed, 2/19 4:00 PM Film Day -
Week 6 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 2/24 4:00 PM Habitat Loss and Fragmentation 249 - 276
Wed, 2/26 4:00 PM Habitat Degradation 277 - 284
Week 7 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 3/3 4:00 PM Metapopulations and Landscape Mosaics 285 - 292
Wed, 3/5 4:00 PM Overexploitation 293 - 321
Week 8 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 3/10 4:00 PM Overexploitation 322 - 328
Wed, 3/12 4:00 PM Invasive Alien Species 329 - 368
Week 9 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 3/17 4:00 PM No Class -
Wed, 3/19 4:00 PM No Class -
Week 10 - Threats to Biodiversity
Mon, 3/24 4:00 PM Climate Change 369 - 373
Wed, 3/26 4:00 PM Climate Change 374 - 402
Week 11 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 3/31 4:00 PM Exam -
Wed, 4/2 4:00 PM Film Day -
Week 12 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 4/7 4:00 PM Species-Level Conservation: Goals and Challenges 405 - 414
Wed, 4/9 4:00 PM Species-Level Conservation: Statistics and Probability 415 - 444
Week 13 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 4/14 4:00 PM Community and Ecosystem Conservation 445 - 476
Wed, 4/16 4:00 PM Landscape-Scale Conservation: PA Networks 477 - 505
Week 14 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 4/21 4:00 PM Landscape-Scale Conservation: Monitoring and Modeling 506 - 520
Wed, 4/23 4:00 PM Ex Situ Conservation: Facilities 521 - 537
Week 15 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 4/28 4:00 PM Ex Situ Conservation: In Situ Contributions 538 - 554
Wed, 4/30 4:00 PM Sustainable Development: Case Studies 573 - 582
Week 16 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 5/5 4:00 PM Film Day -
Wed, 5/7 4:00 PM Film Day -
Week 17 - Approaches to Conservation
Mon, 5/12 5:30 PM Exam -
1 Check back weekly, as I will update this online version as we adjust our pace and plans
2 Required text: Conservation Biology by Cardinale, Primack and Murdoch (October 2019, 1st ed.). ISBN: 9781605357140. If you prefer a hardcopy version, you must opt-out of the online charge on canvas by the end of Week 2.

Expectations & Assessment

Attendance

This is not an online or hybrid course. - I designed the curriculum and objectives specifically with that in mind, so to succeed you must attend and engage with every scheduled meeting. You will not pass this class if you are unable to attend and take your own notes.

Absences may only be truly excused if they have been registered through the Accessibility Services Center. Please do not provide me with any personal or medical details to explain your barriers to attendance or assignment completion. While I do care about accommodating these issues when they arise, I also care about your privacy and respect that office’s expertise in managing the conditions and complications that are outside of my purview. I do my best to integrate a reasonable and universal degree of flexibility into our schedule and assessment plan to accommodate some work/life balance while also ensuring equity and reasonable progress in your learning. I am happy to receive requests and recommendations to help me update and improve this approach for everyone, but I will only create personalized accommodations by working directly with the ASC.

Please also know that I genuinely appreciate opportunities to work with and around student barriers by collaborating with the ASC. If you know that you are coming into the semester with learning barriers (e.g., neurodivergence, visual/auditory processing differences), I strongly encourage you to register this with their office and then communicate with me about the ways I can work this into my approach from the beginning.

How to Earn that Grade

Format Points Count Drops1 Total % Total
Quizzes2 3 16 3 39 16%
Special Assignments 20 3 0 60 24%
Exams3 50 3 0 150 60%
1 Number (if any) of lowest scores that will automatically be dropped from your final grade
2 These are short quizzes given at the start of class to assess your preparation for the week’s topic.
3 You may use hard copy notes/materials for all exams, but not electronic devices/resources.

Preparation Quizzes

Many of our class meetings will begin with a short assessment of your preparation for that week’s materials.

  • These quizzes will only serve as an incentive to ensure widespread accountability for engaging with our discussions and keeping up with the assigned background material. I will ask 1-2 questions that require you to provide a surface-level reflection on some component of the assigned material in no more than 1-3 sentences.

Please arrive to each class on time, having completed the assigned background material for that week and brought a writing utencil. If you arrrive after a quiz is over, I will not interrupt the class to give you the quiz, and I will not let you take the quiz after recieving additional information that the others did not access before taking theirs.

Quiz Rubric
The assessment system will be broad, so each quiz will only recieve a 0, 1, 2, or 3 as an assessment of the student's basic preparation level for the class.
Score Standard Met by Response
0 Nothing submitted.
1 Response suggests the student is not familiar with any of the background content.
2 Response suggests the student reviewed some of the material but did not fully comprehend or has not thought critically about it.
3 Response suggests the student has reviewed the background material and came to class prepared to engage in a thoughtful discussion.

Late Assignments

While I prefer to implement as flexible a deadline policy as possible, I also have to maintain reasonable processing times for assessing every student’s submissions and submitting grades.

To incentivize timely submissions, I will deduct 10% from the final grade on any assignment submitted after the deadline. I will not accept any work from the first half of the semester submitted after our Midterm Exam, and I will not accept any work from the second half of the semester submitted after 5:00 PM on the last Friday of classes (i.e., the Friday before final exams begin). Unless Accessibility Services reaches out to discuss extremely extenuating circumstances with me, I will not make any exceptions to grade your work after the Final Exam.

If you have arranged formal accommodation requests through Accessibility Services for your assignment deadlines (see Section on University Policies below), then I will be happy to honor those to my full ability. Please do not hesitate to remind me if that is the case and I inadvertently apply any late penalties to a grade.

Additional Expectations

Classroom Culture
The following three values form the foundation of my classroom culture and expectations:
1. Authenticity
Circle Check Speak up if you are confused or struggling.
Circle Check Be honest with yourself about your needs & capabilities.
Circle Check Use tools like AI and collaboration with integrity.
Circle Check Take full personal responsibility for mistakes or missed opportunities.
Ban Attempt to manipulate or mislead your instructors or classmates.
Ban Hide or deny your biases or areas for growth.
Ban Present direct results from AI tools like ChatGPT as your own work.
Ban Deflect blame or redirect responsibilities on your instructor or your classmates.
2. Curiosity
Circle Check Use the readings and assignments as a guide.
Circle Check Ask thoughtful questions of yourself, your instructor, and your colleagues.
Circle Check Bring your ideas to my attention.
Ban Let the syllabus limit your investigation.
Ban Expect me to fill your brain with facts for you to recall.
Ban Assume I will not be open to changing or expanding your options.
3. Inclusion
Circle Check Make space for your colleagues to gain just as much as you.
Circle Check Maintain awareness and openness to seeing your bias and privilege.
Circle Check Bring your barriers to my attention so I can help you navigate them.
Ban Dominate discussions.
Ban Assume everyone will share your perspectives or background.
Ban Assume only you are navigating barriers or that barriers are insurmountable with cooperation.

Engagement

You will only succeed in this class if you take full responsibility for your processing and retention of the content.

In other words, you need to develop and refine your own process of taking notes and maintaining records to process class content in real-time and retain key points after you leave.

While I am deeply committed to open science, I believe that open access to teaching materials has deincentized this important facet of classroom engagement (notetaking, that is). As a result, you should not expect to access any and all slides and other teaching materials for this class in any asynchronous format (e.g., posting my slides to canvas or emailing them after class). I will provide some general class Agendas/Outlines to help guide your note-taking early in the semester, and you are more than welcome to take pictures of the slides during class or use other forms of recording to help you later, but you must attend class and pay attention to grasp the key concepts and decide which ideas or concepts are worth noting for later.

This also means that if you miss class, you should rely on reciprocal collaboration with your classmates, if they are willing to share their notes with you. This is also an important skill for learning how to work on teams and collaborate with colleagues for long-term success. If you do miss class, please, do not ask me to provide a comprehensive written or oral record of what you missed. Work directly with Accessibility Services if legitimate barriers arise, and then I will arrange official make-up options for you.

University Policies

Accommodations

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all persons with disabilities. This syllabus is available in alternate formats upon request. Reasonable accommodations are offered to students who are registered with the Accessibility Services Center (ASC), and their requests are made sufficiently in advance.

For more information, contact ASC. Location: 104 H&K
Phone: 402.554.2872
Email: .

Academic Integrity

Plagiarism and cheating of any kind on an examination, quiz, or assignment will result at least in an “F” for that assignment (and may, depending on the severity of the case, lead to an “F” for the entire course) and may be subject to appropriate referral to the Office of Academic and Student Affairs for further action. I will assume that for this course, you will adhere to the University of Nebraska at Omaha policies and maintain the highest academic integrity standards. In other words, don’t cheat by giving answers to others or taking them from anyone else. I will also adhere to the highest standards of academic integrity, so please do not ask me to change (or expect me to change) your grade illegitimately or to bend or break the rules for one person that will not apply to everyone.

Title IX Sexual Misconduct

As your instructor, one of my responsibilities is to help create a safe learning environment on our campus. Title IX and our Sexual Misconduct policy prohibit sexual misconduct. If you have experienced sexual misconduct or know someone who has, the University can help. I encourage you to visit the Title IX website to learn more. If you seek help and want to speak to someone confidentially, you can contact the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

It is also crucial that you know that federal regulations and University policy require me to promptly convey any information about potential sexual misconduct known to me to UNO’s Title IX Coordinator. In that event, they will work with a few others on campus to ensure appropriate measures are taken, and resources are available to the student who may have been harmed. Protecting a student’s privacy is of utmost concern, and all involved will only share information with those who need to know to ensure the University can respond and assist.

Office of Student Leadership, Involvement, and Inclusion

The university’s former Gender and Sexuality Resource Center has been reorganized to form a more intersectional program.

his office is meant as a space for students to learn from each other, build relationships, and foster an environment of understanding and respect. If you are interested in contributing to or benefiting from their work to make UNO a more inclusive environment or you find yourself in need of support and resources, I recommend you start with a visit to their office. You can find them in rooms 112 and 113 of the Milo Bail Student Center or online.

Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct

Students at the University of Nebraska Omaha are expected to maintain standards of personal integrity per institutional goals for the success of all students. This means students are expected to assume responsibility for their actions, observe national, state, and local laws, follow university policies, and respect the rights and property of all people. For more information, see Student Conduct and Community Standards.

Grading Policies

Grade Appeal

Individuals who believe that their grade in a particular course does not properly reflect their performance or that the instructor acted arbitrarily or capriciously in determining the grade should first contact the instructor to determine the rationale for the grade or if there was an error in reporting. Consultation with the instructor should occur before formal action regarding a grade appeal.

After the instructor has provided the rationale for the grade in question and has indicated that no error in reporting was made, the individual may petition the department/school for reconsideration. In such instances, the student should contact the department chair/school director to obtain information on the procedures to follow in requesting an appeal at the department/school level.

The grade appeal process exists to correct inadvertent errors or misunderstandings about your grade, not to extend the term we’ve been given to work together for this class. Please, do not contact me after the final grade deadline to request an opportunity to revise, resubmit, or update work that has already been properly assigned, assessed, and graded unless you have already worked directly with the Accessibility Services Center and reached out to me at their recommendation. I will not consider any continued work on your progress in this course or attention to your materials without extremely extenuating circumstances. If you regret your performance in the class or opportunities you have missed and would like a second chance, I encourage you to re-enroll the next time I am teaching this course and follow the same standards and policies as your classmates.

Dropping a Course

A class can be dropped from your schedule via MavLINK until the last day to withdraw. The last day to withdraw can be found on the Academic Calendar. You can click the “refund” link next to each class in your schedule if you are enrolled. You can also contact the Office of the University Registrar to verify the last day to withdraw.

Drops can only be completed in your course’s 100% refund period. If you drop the course from your schedule during this period, it will not be listed on your academic transcript. Withdraws can be completed until the last day to withdraw for the semester. If you withdraw from a course, a grade of “W” is given for that course, which will be listed on your academic transcript. “W” grades have no impact on your academic GPA.

Other Notices

Right of Revision

The instructor reserves the right to revise or adjust the course syllabus best to accommodate the pace and needs of the students.

Fair Use Policy

Copying or recording synchronous classes and asynchronous course materials without the express prior approval of Dr. Rich is prohibited. All copies and recordings remain the property of UNO and Dr. Rich. UNO and Dr. Rich reserve the right to retrieve, inspect, or destroy them after their intended use. These policies are not intended to affect the rights of students with disabilities under applicable law or UNO policies.